While definitions of news vary, the main determinant of what can be considered as news is “INTEREST.” To be news, an account of an event must be of interest to the readers, listeners or viewers. Interest in a story is determined by the news values. The elements that determine news values may be subdivided into two groups, which are determinants and components
Determinants
A determinant is a factor that sets the character of something, in this case, news. The determinants of news are as follow.
- Timeliness – Today’s news may be stale tomorrow. Therefore, to attain that reader – viewer or listener interest or appeal, facts must be fresh. However, some issues of great impact are timeliness. Therefore, the best time to tell an important story is as soon as it happens or as soon as possible.
- Proximity/Geographic Location – Distance between the news item’s place of origin and its place of publication determines its degree of reader – appeal, and the limits of reader – interest. Usually, the nearer an individual is to the location of a news event, the more relevant it becomes for him/her. This is referred to as geographic proximity. There is another type of proximity, i.e. proximity of interest and an example of it is students’ unrest in a city will definitely interest students in adjacent cities than a businessman of that city.
- Prominence/Personality Involved – All men may be created equal, but some are more equal and more newsworthy than others. In fact, “names make news” goes a cliché. However, names do not always make news. Still, happenings that involve well-known people or institutions are likely to be interesting even if not very important.
- Consequence/Impact/Significance/Magnitude – How many people an event or idea affects and how seriously it affects them determine its importance as news, as well as the extent to which the information may be useful. Again, an item or event may give rise to thought not because of itself but because of its probable consequences – its significance.
- Human Interest – Interest in human beings and events because they concern men and women in situations that might confront anyone else, is called human interest. In a general way, human-interest stories might be defined as those stories that arouse an emotion in the reader/ listener/ viewer and evoke emotional response.
- Novelty – This sounds like human interest but shows some differences. The unusual makes news. The bizarre makes news too. Remember the-man-bite-dog principle. The principle applies here. The first flight to the moon was big news, so was Sandra Day O’ Connor’s appointment as the first woman Justice of the United States Supreme Court. The day a female becomes the Vice President of the US it will be the biggest news around the globe. “Firsts,” “Lasts,” and “Only” have always been newsworthy. So also are stories of freak occurrences and scientific or pseudoscientific phenomena.
- Conflict – Nearly every story on each of our front pages is a report of conflict. Conflict is a central feature of most news. Sometimes it is physical, as in wars or sports. Sometimes it is more subtle and sophisticated like political conflicts.
- Necessity – The seven earlier discussed news values involve people, events and situations that call out for coverage. The value of necessity is, however, the journalist’s making (Mencher, 2010). According to the Mencher (2010), the journalist has discovered something he or she feels it is necessary to disclose. The essential element here is that the journalist considers a situation to be something everyone should know about and usually it is a situation that needs to be exposed and remedied.
Components of News
A component is a constituent part of something. They tend to have more news values or higher news values than stories that lack them. The more of news components you find in a story, the higher the news worthiness of such a story.
Many items could easily fall into the components of news. However, we shall discuss eight that always sell a story anytime it is a content of such story. The eight components of news are:
- Age
- Animal
- Sex
- Conflict
- Money
- Children
- Beauty
- Human interest
